The Role of Importance Perceptions in Participant Sport

Abstract

There have been calls for sport management scholars to work towards an enhanced understanding of how sport can promote social good (Chalip, 2006;Zeigler, 2007). One way to accomplish this is to examine the benefits of sport participation available to both individuals and society as a whole. An instrument designed to measure the importance that sport participants place on the physical, sociological and psychological benefits that are potentially attainable through sport participation is presented, then empirically assessed. The instrument provides a multi-dimensional measure of a construct conceptualized as an instrumental attitude, and fit into a Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. The research topic is significant because of inactivity and the fact that marketing efforts related to sport participation have not generally been successful (Graham and Graham, 2008). Results of the study provide evidence supporting the re-conceptualized instrumental attitude construct and selected paths within a TPB framework.